April Showers and May Flowers

As April ends and May begins - here is a little of what we've been up to!

California weather can never make up its mind this time of year, so we've had a pretty varied month of cool rainy rays and HOT sunny days. Last Sunday in particular was AMAZINGLY perfect. No breeze, just the right amount of warm and cool. We sat outside without needing sweaters, and I felt absolutely great!

Jon was working on some wood carving:

and I took some pictures around the yard:

I just like to capture sweet days like this, because I know that someday I will look back and appreciate the beauty and simplicity of it all. I also love thinking of taking pictures as a way to tell our kids who we are and where we were before they were born. It's like a step back in time.

Also, I will appreciate that at 6 months pregnant I could still see my toes.

I love how Margo and Shasta are such good friends! Shasta came and tumbled Margo over in the grass while she was mid-run and Margo retaliated with some jumping and twirling at Shasta's face! The pictures were blurry, but they cracked me up - I just couldn't resist sharing :)

Shasta is always so good at letting Margo share her toys.  She hardly even bats her paw.

During the rest of the week I went with my parents and sister to my cousin Chelsey's wedding in Utah!

 My hair for the wedding. I am getting pretty proud of my swooping french braids!

The wedding was absolutely gorgeous. I loved being in the sealing room at Mt. Timpanogos with my family, grandmother and cousins. The day started out drizzly and when we left the temple it was beautiful and sunny!

There was such an awesome spirit there and it almost felt like watching my sealing day all over again. I especially loved when the sealer talked about Heaven having their eyes on Philip and Chelsey and Heavenly Father having a destiny for them. I am so thankful for the temple blessings we have here on the Earth to create eternal families. It is amazing!

Unfortunately the only pictures I got were a few with my cell phone.

Michelle and me in front of the temple:

At the reception:

Holy moly, their cake was amazing!

 Here are some of Philip and Chelsey's bridals. Their photographer is amazing! And the earrings Chelsey is wearing were made by her younger brother Dallin. I can't wait to see all the finished pictures from the wedding day :)

Oh, and remember my recent sewing project? Well here it is all finished!

I made this apron for my cousin Megan. She LOVES to bake. Her blog is named "Raspberry Mousse" for goodness' sake. When she came out to SF in January we were talking about how she loved cute aprons. Well I've been wanting to work on my apron skills and just loved this fabric. The teal definitely made me think of her. I was glad to have the excuse of going out to Utah so that I would have someone to practice for! I was so proud of how it turned out. I lined it and all of the stitching turned out super straight. It made me more inspired to keep making things for the baby too!

Megan, modeling her cute new apron. And as it turns out, teal is one of her favorite colors! I'm just that good.

In other news: Jon is graduating in 2 weeks with his master's! I would post pictures of his recent book binding projects including his thesis, but I'm not sure if he's ready to share :) And I want to save it all for a super amazing awesome post about his graduation. I am so proud of him!!

Last, but not least:

Baby Alston and I have officially hit week 28!

Since hitting the third trimester I have popped out more. The baby is active ALL the time. We've started doing kick counts and it only takes about 5 minutes for the baby to roll, move or dance 10 times. I feel so blessed to have an active baby!

Jon says that the baby must be super awesome and over-developed though, because I've been having contractions. Previous to being pregnant, I thought contractions were a lot more scary, but here are a few things I've learned:

One - it is totally normal to have braxton hicks contractions in your third trimester as long as they are not regular and most of the time eating or changing your position will make them go away.

Two - early contractions (for me) do not feel ANYTHING like what has been described to me. I was told at my 24 week check up to be concerned about cramping. What I didn't think about is that my whole belly is baby, not just the lower abdomen, so when I went in a couple days ago for my routine monthly physical, my midwife said "Have you been having a lot of contractions?" and I said "Not at all!" and she said "Newsflash - when you laid down for me to check the baby's heartbeat, you were having a contraction."

Ooohhh! Well in that case - I have them a lot. I mean like probably about once a day. So no big deal. But she told me to just watch and if they became regular then I should call in. She told me that for first time moms it is not uncommon to be unaware of contractions because you don't really know what you're waiting for. To me, they feel like the baby is in a ball stretching WAY out and making my tummy tight. They never hurt, but I can tell when the baby seems to be "stretching".

So yesterday... I'm sitting at the computer and Jon is making lunch, and the baby "stretches". I felt my tummy and it was definitely tight all over. I drank some water, moved around and it went away. 5 minutes later, it happened again. And then 5 minutes again. So I laid down and ate some crackers and a muffin and drank some water. And by the time 45 minutes had gone by I was getting contractions every 3 minutes and they were getting tighter and tighter. I told Jon I thought we should probably call in.

The nurses didn't sound too concerned, but they told me it was probably a good idea to come in and get checked out. We were at the doctor for about 4 hours. My contractions continued the whole time. They hooked me up to some tummy monitors and checked to make sure I wasn't going into pre-term labor. Luckily the baby was super happy and nothing looks like it's progressing too soon. The whole experience basically ended up being me and Jon getting to listen to the baby's heartbeat for a few hours while I had contractions every 1 - 2 minutes that were never super painful, but they were so frequent and did get much tighter so that they started to hurt in my back quite a bit. It was like an intense pinching in my spine. They ended up giving me a shot in the arm to make the contractions go away. I call it: the miracle shot.

It made me glad that I can now recognize what the early signs of labor are like, and I just really really wanted a nap. I'm also even MORE certain that when I really go into labor, I will be getting an epidural. If those were just practice contractions, I know that I could not go through natural labor all the way. I totally respect women who do, but I was so exhausted by the end of my 4 hour episode that I slept the rest of the day.

So we are still good! Everything is fine and I feel great. I just have to take it easy and watch in case they come back again. It has been the most "eventful" day of pregnancy so far - so it felt worthy of the blog. Hopefully Baby A will chill until week 40! He or she must just be too excited to meet us :)

I mean - what baby wouldn't be excited for parents like this???

And in case you're interested - our awesome registry is now open for viewing here!